The Long-Sought Room

New poem.

Coming into this long-sought room
I find

small stones sealed
in a hollowed gourd.

Skin stretched
over a hollowed log.

Holes drilled
into a hollow stick.

Strings plucked
and vibrating over
a hollow box.

A sheet of
blank paper,
a trimmed quill
with a hollow tip,
an old well filled
with new ink.

All here is dependent upon
hollows, upon
vessels that have been
emptied,
refilled, and thus
redefined.

I have come into
this room

wrongly brimful with
unnecessary things.

I bow,
then step out
to lighten my self and
reenter
only when I can say

here I am, room —
present,
holding nothing,
ready.